Again Gary shrugged. “If the cabin’s haunted, the whole darn cañon is in the same fix,” he stated evenly. “You can’t drag an Indian in here with a rope.”
“It’s all damn nonsense!” James Blaine Hawkins asserted blusteringly.
Gary made no reply, but smoked imperturbably, staring abstractedly at the floor.
“Wherever there’s a spook there’s a man at the back of it,” declared James Blaine Hawkins, gathering courage from the continued calm. “That was a man I seen standin’ by the bunk. Felt slippers, likely as not—so he wouldn’t make no noise walkin’. He likely come in when I wasn’t looking. And yuh needn’t try to tell me,” he added defiantly, “that wasn’t no cat!”
Gary turned his head slowly and looked at James Blaine Hawkins.
“If there was a cat,” he argued, “why the heck didn’t I see it? There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”
“I dunno why you never seen it,” James Blaine Hawkins retorted pettishly. “I seen it, plain as I see you this minute. Funny you never seen it. I s’pose you’ll say next yuh never seen that man standin’ there by the bunk! He went outside, and the cat follered him.”
Gary looked up quickly. “I didn’t see any man,” he said gravely. “There wasn’t any man. I think you just imagined it. Waddell used to imagine the same thing. And he used to see a cat. He particularly hated the cat.” James Blaine Hawkins gave a gasp. Gary looked at him sharply and saw that he was once more staring at the empty air near the door. The cat had come in again and was gazing questioningly about her as if trying to decide where she would curl herself down for a nap. The eyes of James Blaine Hawkins pulled themselves away from the terrifying vision near the door, and turned toward Faith. He gave a sudden yell and rushed out of the cabin.
Faith ran and jumped upon the bunk, her tail the size of a bologna sausage. Gary got up and followed James Blaine Hawkins as far as the door.
“Look out you don’t hear the Voice, Mr. Hawkins,” he said commiseratingly. “If I let my imagination get a fair running start, I couldn’t stay in this cañon over night. I’d be a plain nut inside twenty-four hours.”